Nowadays, coal production increases continuously due to an increase in
mechanization in coal mining and demand in its related fields of application
worldwide. Coal production in China is especially an increasing trend and a large
amount of waste fine coal is produced. Waste fine coals usually contain large
amounts of ash and inorganic sulfur due to non-selective coal mining of the coal.
Therefore, waste fine coals are available as a resource and cause spontaneous
combustion leading in turn to air pollution because of their coal contents and
small particle sizes which increases the surface area liable to be wet and
oxidized, and the disposal site of waste fine coals cause land occupation, soil
pollution and water contamination.
In this study, a vegetable oil agglomeration process was performed for coal
recovery from Chongqing Nantong waste fine coals in China. The oil
agglomeration process has been used to mineral oil of exhaustible resource.
Therefore, in this study, several kinds of vegetable oils are selected as oil
agglutinative agents because the vegetable oils which are renewable, available
and less-pollutant energy resources. The effects of the parameters including
particle sizes, agitation conditions, chemical structure and viscosity of vegetable
oils were investigated based on the combustible matter recovery, ash reduction
and efficiency index. It was concluded that particle sizes of waste fine coal,
agitation rate and agitation time will influence on the recovery efficiency of
combustible matter from its original waste coal by the colza oil agglomeration.
Furthermore, a wide range of vegetable oil alteration grades including prepared
waste vegetable oil samples and therefore, of oil properties, such as chemical